


Sum of a Man

by whispurr



Category: Stargate Universe
Genre: Body Horror, Body Swap, M/M, Multi, Other, Prophetic Dreams, accidental shooting nudge nudge wink wink, amnesia ad nauseam, aquasomnia, carcinogenic ascended benefactor, cloning for fun and profit, crying and angst, kino tag, meaningful woodcarving, pillow forts, space cadets, space rhinos, survival sex, walking into walls
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-05-29
Updated: 2015-01-27
Packaged: 2017-12-13 07:24:14
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 2
Words: 9,755
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/821584
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whispurr/pseuds/whispurr
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Investigating a Nakai research lab brings to light their less-savory scientific endeavors. The ethical quandary that follows alters Destiny's fate, shifts the dynamic of the crew, and threatens Rush's job security. Unfortunately for Rush, it's also Colonel Young's new chess buddy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue-

**Author's Note:**

> Author's Note: This story is an alternate universe set shortly after Faith, with the prologue specifying events that happened between Justice and Space. It will have some body horror, dubious sexual consent, gore, swearing, and deal with some possibly troubling territory such as self-worth, identity, existentialism, and Nicholas Rush being a sad, sad creature. More terrible things might be added to that list in the future.
> 
> Warnings for chapters will be at the beginning of each chapter, unless involving spoilers, in which case the warnings will be put in the end notes and mentioned here.
> 
> Warnings for this chapter: Mild body horror

Rush would never know when they did it. Not exactly.

He could remember, if he tried (he tried not to), the jarring double-vision of what their neural interface tried to project. It was still early. Before they could adjust for his human brain. Before they fixed the strange dual reality, like living in a double-exposed photograph.

In one world, he was on _Destiny_. His team greeted him with smiles, which was entirely wrong. They were missing their lips, looking more like dogs baring their teeth. Their skulls were caved in. Eyeballs protruded. Volker's neck was as long as his spine, holding an extra rib cage and snapping under its own weight. Brody's hair was the sound of radio static, a disjointed, synesthesiac nightmare. Franklin was there. Rush could not see him, but Rush knew he was there.

In another world, Rush's eyes were wide and blown. Every muscle in his body burned to move him. He could see, through the projected haze of his doppelganger team, one of the aliens holding a long syringe. Rush desperately wanted to move. They kept him in a strange configuration, tilted back, halfway under horizontal in the container he was encased in. Like an egg in shape, larger than a bathtub and filled with a liquid thicker than resin, like molten glass pooling around him, but instead of scorching it was deceptively cool. It was the only real sensation over the numbness and false sensitivity of the projection.

"Did you finish the schematics?" Volker asked, seemingly undisturbed by the state of his own broken neck. In the tiny corner of Rush's brain he could keep for himself, to ensure his basic sanity, he felt grateful.

They were making progress. They were speaking, in English, in a normal vocal range and in words that made sense. The no longer sounded like the color orange or like the idea of cutting the grass or, worst of all, like violin music.

That small corner of his mind was further split as _Destiny_ dissolved and reconstructed itself. This time, Volker's neck was still long, but there was no second ribcage to be seen.

"Did you finish the schematics?" Volker asked, head managing to balance a fraction of a second longer before collapsing. _Destiny_ began to dematerialize again.

A large part of the small part of his mind over which he had autonomy wanted to die. A sliver of him wanted them to just get it right, that no secrets were worth this, for it just to be over and to go back to the ship and it didn't matter if it wasn't real. He didn't care if anything was real.

Except for that foreign but clearly recognizable hypodermic needle one of the aliens held aloft, as if it wanted Rush to know what was coming next. It punctured the container's curious membrane and slowed as it hit the gel's resistance, but pushed forward smoothly. Rush could see it advancing, ducking his head in his Destiny-Reality to watch it through the smooth, flat plane of Brody's clipboard. It was easier to see a reality more clearly on flat, smooth surfaces in the other. Less visual interference. He resisted, tried to thrash, but his viscous prison held him tightly in place.

The needle was as thick as a straw, and even though there was no visible plunger, Rush got the impression they were taking something out rather that putting something in. He wasn't sure if that was better or worse.

It punctured his belly, punching through the skin.

It was agonizing. Rush screamed in the Destiny-Reality, and his team looked at him strangely for it. He screamed in the Alien-Reality, or at least tried to. The thick substance was in his mouth and nose and throat, clogging the sound and feeling like it should be more uncomfortable than it was. He was pretty sure they had disabled his drowning reflex. How he was breathing, however, was a mystery.

They took something and pulled out, gel closing in where the needle had been, flowing, cool and numbing. He didn't bleed a drop. It was all tamped down by the pressure around him, like his useless tear ducts. His tear glands were swollen with lacrimal fluid, puffing the skin into the corner of (one version of) his vision. Rush has no idea what it was, and couldn't move his arms to check.

Volker's neck was much shorter now, but his skull was still unnaturally cone-shaped, and Brody's hair, while being colored the gradient color of a sunset, was at least in the right sensory family. Franklin was still invisible.

"Did you finish the schematics?" Volker asked again, and again Rush's mind involuntarily relayed through the neural interface, _This is still not right_. Volker began to break apart, ready to be reconstructed more accurately.

After a herculean effort, Rush managed to squeeze his eyes shut in the Alien-Reality, fighting against the preserving material that trapped him like a prehistoric mosquito in amber. He still lived in the two realities, could still feel the pressure and cool and the weight of his own body and the sensation of being matter. But having only one vision helped.

The focus it took to maintain two different realities was untenable. Rush had no sense of time nor capacity to keep up with _Destiny_ and her crew's countless reassemblies and its ever-impossible, ever-erroneous construction. But the stress never lifted. They kept pushing. And pushing. And Rush knew somewhere in the very back of his consciousness that he was waning, that he couldn't keep reconciling the inexplicably-shifting gravity or the wrong textures in the air or the dissociative effect of his eyes materializing at the opposite end of the room, staring at his own featureless face from a distance.

He was cracking.

Something horrifically painful crushed his sternum. Not on _Destiny_. The cold, numbing gel seeped in, seeped too deep inside him. Rush had to be - had to focus - on the Alien-Reality. He had to do something, but on _Destiny_ the console screens emitted not light but a beam of energy that was quickly melting through the hull of the ship. They were prying open his chest. Snapping bones. He was going to be sucked into sp- but no, that wasn't real. Something cold and metal slid against the open gore of his chest. Rush knew it was just an illusion, but when the hull was breached and the vacuum of space sucked the air from the room in a single moment, Rush leaped to hold on to a terminal.

There was something-

They put something in him.

~~

They found him.

Rush felt the quiver from within his tank. He startled to full consciousness, the first respite in a long chain of unbroken, mind-bending waking hours. For the first time, he was alone and reality was solid. He would have wept, but didn't have the energy or salt left in him to do so. Instead, he drifted in the thin water. Hooded his eyes and rested and relished being without the complications of being twice. He was mentally, emotionally, and physically exhausted.

There was no way to escape. He knew, so he didn't try.

When Scott and Greer found him, he couldn't even muster surprise. It took them nearly ten minutes and the advent of half the science team to figure out how to use the control panel and drain the tank. The feeling of gravity returning made Rush buckle his knees on the way down, laying in an inelegant heap on the wet tank bottom while they figured out the door. He made a token attempt to lift his head, but failed.

He closed his eyes.

It was cold. He could hear the muted conversation on the other side of the thick glass. With a hydraulic hiss, a door recessed on the tank's far end. Rush let them come to him. Unmoving. Shaking, partial from the cold. They surrounded him, lifted him gently, in a way Rush didn't think possible, to his feet. Park moved wet hair out of his eyes. Greer urged them to move through the halls of alien architecture. Hands locked around his arms and back.

Everything was a comfort. Everything was solid. And singular. He didn't have to think too hard to process what was happening. Scott's idiotic, crooked smile when checking in on his radio was a comfort. The cadence of Greer's voice. The sway of Park's short, bobbed hair. (Because Park's hair had always been short.) It was all a comfort. It was miraculous.

By the time they made it back to the docked _Destiny_ , the adrenaline was dissipating. Rush crashed, and hard.

He wanted his mother. For the first time since he was four, and his da had explained that she was gone now, and not just to the hospital for a while, he wanted his mother. His throat closed tight, and he gasped to breathe, but he did not cry; his tear glands were still damaged. He wanted to be held. Or to hide. Or to wake up.

He managed a quiet, dry sob.

"You're going to be okay, Doc," Greer said from next to him. Distantly, Rush knew that was an entirely unfounded assumption, and that idea terrified him. An aftershock of panic made him struggle in the grip holding him up, but he hadn't eaten, making the thrashing more pathetic than it was dangerous.

"Should we sedate him?" someone, maybe Brody, asked behind him.

Rush tried to picture the Ancient-design hypo that would inject the alien venom they had collected. The image he generated instead was the long, thick alien needle, sinking down into his stomach.

"Naw," Scott decided, noticing how Rush fell limp and compliant. Not noticing the dilation in his wide eyes. "Doesn't look like he'll need it."

From that point until the jerking shudder of _Destiny's_ docking release, no one spoke to him directly. That was a blessing. When they were almost at the end of the alien ship, Greer, Scott, and the present science team passed Rush off to Lieutenant James and Corporal Barnes. While the larger team went back, presumably to make sure that everyone who had boarded was getting out, James and Barnes stole Rush away, leading him fast enough that his feet skidded across the ground uselessly.

He panted in exhaustion trying to keep up, occasionally finding his footing for a pace or two before a jolt of pain ran up through his legs. _Destiny_ had seemed so distant and unattainable while he was with the aliens that Rush could barely orient himself when he did come back onboard. They were moving fast. _Destiny_ shuddered, and a distant noise like a blast sounded out.

"Are we under attack?" Rush asked. The words came out automatically, without him considering what that could mean.

Barnes shifted Rush up higher onto her shoulder. "I think that was us undocking."

That, too, was hard to conceive. Rush stared unfocusing into space. What did this mean? This meant... this meant...

"They're gone?" Rush asked. It was quiet enough that no one heard. The only response he got was James this time being the one to bounce him up higher on her shoulder.

They were gone. It sounded simple. Rush still could not believe it.

They took him to TJ. After stripping him out of the clinging wetsuit and into the thoughtful wrap of two thermal blankets, he still shook. It was difficult to still pretend it was from the cold. Someone had retrieved his clothes from his room and left them waiting in the infirmary, still folded the way he had left them on the bed. Before Rush put on his shirts and vest, TJ carefully checked him over for injuries.

"Can you tell me your name?"

"Doctor Nicholas Rush," Rush responded, breathless. The syllables quaked.

"Good," TJ praised after just a moment of hesitation, and any other time Rush would have bristled at her softened tone. But the gentle quiet of her voice and the attentive lay of her hands over the sore muscles in his arms were grounding. "Can you tell me how you got these?"

Rush followed her gaze and saw for the first time the bruises along his arms. Black and purple blooming along his bones, pink, green, and yellow along the muscle. They were extensive. Ghastly. He tried to recall where they might have come from, but Rush found recollection beyond him. He bowed his head. "No."

She said nothing, but her face tightened. "Do you know where you are?"

" _Destiny_ ," Rush responded promptly, still talking to his lap. Then, to clarify, "The genuine _Destiny_."

"What does-? Wait, nevermind," TJ said instead, shaking her head. "We're going to give you some time before debriefing. Do you think you'll be okay with answering questions later tonight?"

"What time is it?" Rush asked. He already knew that the answer to her question was a resounding 'no', but somehow he didn't think putting it off would help.

"About 0800. I'd like to get a crisis counselor onboard as soon as one is cleared for the stones. We can go ahead without one if you feel up to it, but SGC ordered a full psych eval eventually."

"And I'm sure they can enforce that," Rush murmured. It was an automatic response. It felt nice. Natural. Normal. TJ seemed to appreciate it, giving him the first painless smile he had seen in what felt like years.

Satisfied that there were no other injuries (because he had never been cut open), she ordered him to lie down and rest. Rush obeyed, more because he was exhausted than any sense of submission. Exhausted.

He couldn't close his eyes. He couldn't think straight. He couldn't even think. Rush burned in frustration, but was too afraid to try and navigate through his mind. For now, at least. He could wait for the tangle to loosen. He didn't- He didn't need to think right now.

"How is he?" a quiet voice asked. It floated in from just outside the infirmary door, clearly trying not to disturb him. It sounded concerned. Sincerely concerned.

Rush swallowed bile. That was Young's voice.

"In my professional opinion?" TJ responded, sounding strained. "He's got bruising, some tenderness, and he's probably not eaten properly since they took him. I'd say water his rations down more and let him rest, but that's not what I'm concerned about."

"What, then what?" Young asked. Ever-demanding, but in this, with TJ, he sounded almost harmless. More like he realized for once he was out of his league.

TJ exhaled. "I'm not a psychologist."

"Your best guess, then," Young persisted. A mix of insistence and distress. Rush did not understand.

"I don't have one because I'm not a psychologist. But you can see him yourself during debriefing."

"Is he awake?"

Rush's gut twisted so quickly it actually drew his legs up an inch. TJ sounded cross. "He shouldn't be if he is."

Rush's gaze drifted across the room, trying to distract himself from his would-be murderer skulking in the hallway, TJ being the only thing between them. His eyes rested on the Ancient hypodermic. He was-

Alien needle.

Rush gave a strangled cry, suddenly unable to expand his ribs or lower his diaphragm. His arteries and veins leapt up in his neck, on his arms, coloring his bruises. He was going to die. There was something wrong with his heart and he was going to die. This was what death felt like. Dizzy. Cold.

Above him, TJ ineffectually tried to explain what a panic attack was.

He was dying.

"You're okay."

He was dying.

"You're going to be okay."

He was dying, and Rush had never in his life wanted to hit a woman, but if he had been capable of anything remotely resembling motor skills then so help him-

She reached for the hypo, and Rush's mind ground to a halt.

There was a hiss against his arm.

Rush woke hours later, feeling profoundly betrayed.

(He really hoped this wasn't going to become a pattern.)

"You sedated me," he rasped, aiming for accusatory and falling straight into pitiful with his hoarse throat. The memory alone made his stomach flip.

TJ looked up from the folder she was writing in, taking inventory. She had the decency to look guilty.

"You were going to hurt yourself," TJ rationalized for him, crossing the room to his bedside.

Rush wanted to repeat himself, to make her understand, but didn't. Instead, he turned his focus to the infirmary ceiling with a bitter glare. "How long was I under?"

TJ tilted her head to the side, approximating. "Only... thirteen hours? How do you feel?"

Rush hissed through his teeth, awkwardly stilting to his elbows in an attempt to sit up. TJ's hand on his shoulder pressed him gently but firmly back onto the cot, pulling the thermal blankets back up. It would have been embarrassing how easily she handled him, but Rush was preoccupied. "The debriefing," he murmured. "We should get on the stones."

"They rescheduled. How do you feel?" TJ pressed.

"Fine. Good." Rush clenched his teeth and huffed. "These sorts of things have protocols for a reason, Lieutenant."

TJ didn't seem too terribly troubled. She crossed the room again and returned with a bowl of banana mush. It was watered down enough that a shallow puddle of water sat on top with nothing left to thin. Rush shoveled a bit up and let it slide off his spoon with a unappetizing dribble, looking past it to TJ with obvious displeasure. "Usually we would give you a liquid diet, but this is really the best we can do," she explained at his reproachful look. "You looked like you lost some weight."

Rush pressed his palm against his chest. Not only could he pinch out the outline of his clavicle, the row of his ribs protruded from his stretched skin just below, starting too high on his chest. He flattened his hand, rubbing the bruise there through his white undershirt. He didn't feel hungry. That probably was not good.

Rush swallowed down half of the bowl while TJ ran through a general list of questions to evaluate his health when the memory of her conversation in the hall came up.

"What about Colonel Young?" Rush asked, mixing some of the excess water with the muck at the bottom of the bowl. He already felt uncomfortably full, but was pretty sure the lieutenant wouldn't accept that.

"What about him?"

"He was asking for me."

This actually got her attention. He wasn't sure what strange spectrum of emotion flashed across her face, but it settled on something close to what he saw when waking up from his withdrawal-induced embarrassment. "Is that why-"

"No, no, of course not," Rush dismissed with a wave of his hand. "He needed me for something, and I think I've slept as much as I'm going to."

"I told him he could stop by after the debriefing, if you were feeling up to it," she said, words slowed and obviously plucked with care.

Rush's mouth pulled into a suspicious not-smile. "That won't be necessary, Lieutenant. If you wouldn't mind letting him know I'm awake- better yet. I think my radio is still in my room. I'm sure the rest of the science team miss my barking of orders."

"Even if you were cleared for duty and I got you your radio, which isn't going to happen, that doesn't mean you have to see him right now," TJ said. She sounded urgent. Stern. Angry even, and Rush privately wondered when his personal health had become a topic of concern.

This time Rush did roll his eyes in frustration. "Now's as good a time as any."

"No," she began, the word chopped. She leaned closer, almost conspiratorially, and set her face into dead seriousness. A hard line in her voice clarified, "I mean, you don't have to see him again, ever."

She sounded protective.

And a number of things occurred to Rush. That the edge in Lieutenant Johansen's voice was not directed towards him, for one (for once). That she was not only discouraging civilian cooperation, but encouraging insubordination of her ranking officer. She was encouraging insubordination of _Young_. Encouraging _him_.

And that, in some meaning of the phrase, she was on his side.

Rush leaned back, exhaling sharply. He glanced around the room with his head bowed, fringe of loose hair hiding his face, and said quiet and even, "Get the colonel."

He didn't have to worry very long. Colonel Young appeared at the entrance to the infirmary sooner than expected. TJ followed up behind him, standing like a sentry so that Young was placed between them. It seemed so strategic. Rush shifted uncomfortably.

"Lieutenant, I wouldn't want to keep you from your duties if you have someplace you need to be," Rush tried, head tilted meaningfully towards the door. TJ got the hint and, while it was clear to Rush that she didn't like the sound of that, she respected his request.

If he were to be asked later, Doctor Rush would not be able to remember what words had been said when he was finally left alone with his would-be killer. He would only recall the meaning behind them. Perhaps it was because Colonel Young's submission and contrition were so bizarre that it was difficult for him to process at all. Certain things, however, stuck tight.

That the crew had figured out what had occurred on the desert planet.

That the science team had driven maintenance into the ground.

That everyone wanted him, needed him, and had turned on Young when things began to unravel.

That Young had been the one to marshall a team and organize his rescue.

That Young had sat beside him in the infirmary under the threat of incarceration (for attempted murder), promising respect and power and autonomy for Rush in exchange for Rush's forgiveness and endorsement. Or at least, for more favorable testimony at Young's court-martial.

That Young had begged him.

That he was safe.

Like lines of ill-fitting code written in his memory, the likes of which Eli had pointed out and damned him with. It was there. He could have seen it. Should have seen it. But he wanted it, and wanted it so much that he refused to look too closely at the clumsy insertion.

It was three weeks before he was back on shift. Before, he would occasionally act as lead scientist when in a real emergency, but after the surge of adrenaline and necessity, Rush would always retreat to his quarters, nursing his tentative grip on himself. The math helped. It was calming. Easy, most of the time, and when it wasn't, it was a welcome challenge. After three weeks, things began to... to patch. He had more good days than bad. The flashes at the corner of his eyes, ghosts of _Destiny's_ projected, impossible landscape, lessened in frequency and severity. He slept, sometimes for whole hours before nightmares would wake him.

Lead scientist. Perhaps not yet cleared for all of his old duties, but working together with Young, a split of responsibilities they both agreed were fair and realistic. The team gave him a wide berth, none of them quite as confident in Rush's stability as Young was. It didn't take long for Rush to prove his mettle. He quickly returned to his place as the most productive member of the science team.

He worked at his station, diligent and quiet.

"Doctor Rush, did you finish those schematics?" Volker asked, leaning back in his chair to address him across the room. Everyone called him Doctor Rush now. His team. The military. Even the civilians that passed him in the hall, smiling and greeting him with the most pleasant expressions.

"Yes, yes," Rush said, waving his hand.

"Could you send it to my station, please? I need to see the layout of the ship's nose."

Rush nodded, not looking up from his screen. "Of course."

Rush heard him murmur his thanks, followed by the quiet, curious noise of Volker reviewing the new information. The gentle litany that he muttered to himself, little rhetorical questions, interest, enthusiasm, whispers of awe, made the corner of Rush's mouth hook up in a hard-earned smile. He catalogued the ambiance as 'the sound of accruing knowledge'.

Rush's smile warmed and melted into genuine. Small, fragile and new. He had nearly everything he wanted.

Unfortunately, perfect happiness was impossible. And when you try to make the impossible happened, complications tend to arise.

It was almost six months after Rush's return when Eli asked him for help with the chair diagnostics. After stabilizing the myriad of issues that had cropped up since he had left, Rush and the science team turned their attention back to the chair. This time, he was met with no resistance from the military. When he had informed Colonel Young, the man had nodded at him with a kind of rational submission.

Of course, there was work to be done before attempting to use it. Naturally. He wasn't irresponsible. They spent weeks fine-tuning the software buffer, testing, re-testing, reviewing, re-reviewing. Hoarding information. Making it safe. Making it ready. And they were close. Every day a little closer.

Rush's presence in the chair room grew to be near constant. He slept, he ate, he went through the motions of the chores necessary to maintain the ship. And he'd make the long trip down _Destiny's_ halls back to the real work, real excitement and a real sense of purpose.

And when the door opened, Gloria Rush was sitting in the chair.

Her perfume was thick in the air, but not overpowering. The same intensity he breathed when he was next to her, kissing her throat as they closed their eyes for bed. Near. It flooded the room and grabbed him by the throat and tightened her grip. It hit him first, before he could understand what he was seeing.

And then her, lit by the bleaching floodlight above, casting dark shadows as intense as the brilliance of her skin. And she was radiant. Ethereal in how she moved, but there was another dimension to her that Rush had not been able to feel. A depth. Her hair was dark, like when they first met. Before the cancer and the chemo and the wigs and things getting complicated.

"Hello, Nicholas," she said, her words making the world shake, the lights flicker. His chest vibrated in resonance, as if it were coming from inside him.

"You're not real," Nicholas whispered, voice cracking.

She smiled sadly and nodded. "You were always a clever man."

She flickered, the sharp edge of her form fuzzing for a moment, a blink of translucence.

"No," Nicholas choked. "No, no, you don't have to-"

The walls shivered.

Nicholas took a step forward, extending his palm, but afraid to touch. Afraid it wouldn't be solid. "You don't have to do this. I can keep pretending." He wasn't talking to her.

Even to himself, his voice sounded weak. Gloria flickered again, and Nicholas touched her cheek with his fingertip.

She felt soft and solid, until she didn't, fading like the walls peeling away around them.

"I can pretend it never happened," he pleaded. His shoulders shook. Gloria softened, her hand on his arm, spectral. "Please. I can. I can. You don't have to-"

She was gone, his hand hovering in air. He keened, a smothered scream, curled his hand to his chest. The chair shuddered apart, drifting in pieces before no longer existing. The wall was shedding, shredded like wallpaper, revealing the void behind it.

The floor dropped out, and Rush was encased in the bowels of the alien ship.

~~

They found him.

It was shorter this time. Rush's mind was callusing, adapting and toughening to this torture. He passed the point of shock and began, as agonizing as it was, to accept it. In this reality, it took him a week to recover enough to get back to work. When he triggered the reality's dissolution only a month later, the dread began to harden into bitter, grim hatred. The scent of her perfume breezed in the air. When he crashed back into the Alien-Reality, he was already halfway back to calm.

~~

They found him.

He was suspicious. It took him only a day to get back to work, and the entire time he was poised for deconstruction. He was profoundly dissatisfied to find out that he was right, triggering deconstruction after five months. She was there for just a moment.

~~

They found him.

He knew it wasn't real. That didn't help. He couldn't do anything. He was there for the meantime. Biding time. He might as well live during that time. Eight weeks to dematerialize.

~~

They found him.

It was... It seemed reasonable to pretend. It wasn't a bad existence. People were nice.

~~

They found him.

Nicer than they used to be.

~~

They found him.

~~

They found him.

~~

They found him.

~~

His eyes opened.

There was a pipe hitting the glass.


	2. The Parking Brake

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author's Note: After a significant hiatus, I'm back. Massive thanks to all those who read, faved and reviewed so far. This is a very exposition-y chapter, but hopefully it won't take too much longer to get to the action and the science and the moral crises. Oh, and the porn. Soon. I promise.

Nick sat with his back pressed to the wall, heels bouncing on the linoleum floor of the flat's kitchenette. He was both bored and hungry, a dangerous combination for a tenacious four-year-old.

He glanced around the corner to the single room he and his papa shared, to where his body rested like a great dragon in slumber. His papa was tired often lately, taking to long naps and wordlessness Nick was too young to understand and worry for, ever since his ma had gone. He would frequently skip meals in favor for sleeping, leaving Nick to climb up one of the remaining kitchen chairs, which at his age gave him vertigo, to scavenge from the counters above.

He would make his papa toast, Nick resolved. That's what his ma used to make him when he tripped and fell and hurt himself, and though the complexity of bereavement was lost on the wee lad, he knew just enough to recognize a sadness there needing fixing.

Braving the heights of the kitchen chair, he crawled up carefully to the countertops, minding the old, dirty dishes that were scattered like landmines. Standing made him dizzy, so he elected to scoot and crawl across the countertop, over to where the stove was lurking, where he was faced with his first obstacle. He didn't know how to start a fire. In fact, he only just knew he wasn't supposed to start fires, at least not without his ma or papa, but no amount of pushing or begging or whining could stir his papa when he was sleeping, and the point was to make him feel better, anyway.

In his earnest-most attempts to puzzle out the complexities of striking a match he had found when accidentally knocking over a matchbox left out, his attention was divided. Each strike he mimicked from watching his ma made his whole frame wobble, each swipe nudging him closer and closer to the edge. Finally, a tiny flame lit the tip of his seventh match, and Nick shimmied in pride and delight. That is, until, he lost his balance and went tumbling down onto the floor, hitting his hand and knees hard on the linoleum below.

He tried not to cry.

He did. But the pain radiating up from his palms and the tiny beads of blood collecting on his knees made his eyes sting, and when he saw his match across the floor among a dozen spilled matches, snuffed despite his best effort, his lip began to tremble, and a peal of a sob forced its way out.

He sat back on his haunches and let go, his crying almost drowning out the gallop of heavy footfalls as he was suddenly enveloped in a bulky blanket.

He hiccuped, surprise halting his tears for just a moment as the somber face of his papa peered into his own.

"Nicky," he said, voice tight and serious, sobering in the way only a stern father's face could be. "Are you okay? What happened?"

"Fell off," Nick said, pointing over to the counter. He bowed his head, waiting for chastisement. He had been told not to climb on the counter.

"Nicky, I told you a thousand bleeding times not to climb on things!" His papa cried, and with a sweeping motion pulled him close in a tight hug that lasted longer than Nick was expecting. Not that he minded; he hadn't gotten a hug in a while and he had missed it.

At last, Papa released him, holding him at arms length to ask, "What do you think you were doing?"

"Wanted to make you toast," Nick said.

The expression on his papa's face was unfathomable, forlorn and touched in a way beyond Nick's understanding. Finally, he said with a sad smile, "How about I make toast for the both of us. Sound good?"

~~

Rush's eyes peeled open. The weight of exhaustion settled over his sore chest and limbs made sitting up a chore, but the always-strange sensation of dropping out of FTL and the shift of lighting as the FTL lights faded in favor of the gentler ambient light of the raw stars out his window drew his mind already to work.

Checking his watch, he had only been asleep for two hours. Rush had checked the power before going off shift as part of his typical routine, and there hadn't been any need for a recharge. Water and food supplies had been fine, and so the need to drop out of FTL left Rush scouring his face in a hand to wake himself up.

He reached for the radio he kept on his bedside table and was about to ask for a sitrep when a thought hit him.

"Shit," he swore under his breath. He swung the blankets off from over his legs and swung around to sit up, setting the radio at the hip holster he had fallen asleep in. "Shit. Eli."

They had dropped out of FTL. A set of red zeros, written in the Ancient numerical system, and a distinct lack of open gates close enough to dial made this a concern for Colonel Young.

On a list of concerns, ranked by how troubling they were, what he only knew to be an inexplicable failing of technology he wasn't expected to understand ranked surprisingly low on that scale. Mostly because no one in the crew seemed to be in immediate, grave danger from this malfunction. That was good. Colonel Young liked to keep problems he cared about to the life-threatening, and god only knew he had enough of those without another hiccup in the ship mechanics adding to the growing list of deadly things in space he was now responsible for.

What was troubling was Volker and Park's voices over the radio. They were trying to hail Rush, without success, which meant he was neither in the control interface room nor responding to the science team. Young was used to Rush ignoring his radio for anyone in the military, and Volker wasn't a surprise, but Park was an anomaly.

Rush wasn't just not-yet-found. Rush was hiding. Which, really, compounded Young's suspicion. Much like everything Rush seemed to do.

Young planted his rifle on the ground and rubbed his bad leg absently. The FTL drop had occurred mid-step, and the shift twisted the old injury enough to make it ache as he walked. Regardless of the lead scientist's location, the control interface room was the highest chance he had of finding anyone with the prefix "Dr." in front of their name, and as comparatively harmless as drifting in deep space seemed to be, Young wanted answers.

~~

Young was not getting any answers.

He was getting Volker, Park and now Brody scanning through the second diagnostic report they had gotten since Young had arrived, Volker and Brody wearing a matched set of hopelessly-stumped frowns at the array of information floating between the three of them. Park was busy with something on her screen, but her face was only just slightly less confused.

Young took a long, tempered breath. It wasn't worth the blood pressure so long as they weren't going to starve or shrivel up in a star or get blasted out of the sky by aliens.

"Maybe that's just what it does when it's just stopped to refuel," Volker suggested, throwing his arms up as much as he could with his elbows planted on the edge of his console.

Brody hummed, shooting the theory down. "Our fuel is almost at maximum capacity."

"Thirty-two percent is almost maximum capacity?"

"When your maximum capacity is about thirty-six, yeah," Brody said. "I mean I'm not Rush but the math is pretty-"

"We're not going towards the sun, either." Young was calm. He was going to stay calm.

"Hey! I was still looking at that," Brody said over his shoulder to where Park was working.

She looked up with a blank expression until she noticed the diagnostics had been replaced by the stats on one of the nearby, locked-out planets. The projected information narrowed into the biological presence on the planet. It categorized a short list of unicellular life. Nothing close to something they can eat.

"That's not me doing that," Park said from her station.

The planet's information closed, and another locked-out planet was brought up, again sifting through the organic presence the scanner had picked up. The list was empty, the scanning information closed and the process repeated.

"Is Destiny looking for something we need on one of these rocks?" Young asked, unsure and caught between a gaggle of scientists he really felt should probably know more about this by now. He wasn't used to knowing as much as everyone else did in the control interface room, and found that it was not the comfort he had hoped it would be.

"All of the planets in this system are locked out," Brody explained.

"That one's got eukaryotic organisms," Park offered, watching the display continue to list the biological presences. She sounded happy on the planet's behalf.

"Can anyone here tell me where this is even coming from?" Young demanded, voice edging into anger.

The science team stared for a pause before averting their gaze again in uncomfortable silence. Volker ducked his head and returned his attention to his console. "Looks like the information is being brought up in one of the remote terminals near the hydroponics lab."

"I can check," Park offered.

"Don't bother," Young said flatly, holding a hand up to her as he turned to leave.

If you want something done right, you had to do it yourself.

~~

Young could hear the voices outside the familiar room before even entering.

"Try again."

"Nothing's going to change, I just need to figure out-"

"Stop arguing and look again!" Rush's voice hissed around the edge of the bulkhead, with Eli's protesting cut short underneath it.

Young frowned. Rush he had expected, but he had thought better of Eli. With the authority of an angry father catching his delinquent son in the act, he showed himself in the doorway.

"Oh, crap," Eli said, drawing the 'oh' out dreadfully and looking past Rush to Young.

Rush spun, and the change that he displayed was fluid. His straight, almost convex spine bent, arms coming around to lock over his own elbows, and the earnest, lively expression flattened as soon as he saw Young.

"Colonel," he acknowledged, making it sound even more unwelcomed that Young already knew he was.

"Don't let me keep you." Young's hand was occupied with his rifle, so instead of an open palm he motioned with a wrist for them to continue.

Eli immediately looked to Rush for some kind of indication of what he should do. Rush tried not to look guilty (he failed). Young took a deep, steady breath that was more than half a sigh.

"Alright," Young said heavily. "You're going to make me ask what you're doing in here."

"It's just a program Eli was tinkering with. He made a small error that he's working on now, and will be fixed in just a moment," Rush offered primly.

"I didn't make a mistake!"

"What program?" Young asked.

"It's nothing you need to be concerned about."

"Rush." Young began again, voice solid and low. "What program."

Rush apparently realized he wasn't wheedling his way out of this and straightened. His face leveled into an inscrutably neutral expression. Unblinking eye contact. "… It's a subroutine involving the life support system in an unoccupied area of the ship. Risk free. Purely academic."

"He's lying," Eli said, tone tilting up and down as if it were obvious, still engrossed by the screen. Rush closed his eyes slowly and pinched the bridge of his nose, thumbnail tracing a line across his tear duct, as if Eli had said something monumentally stupid.

Young was going to stay calm.

He took in another long (long), even breath, edging on grinding his teeth, and let his voice run jagged. "Rush."

It was not a threat. It sounded threatening, but it was not a threat. Nevertheless, Rush caved, the line of his shoulder breaking in honesty.

"It's a safety program," Rush finally admitted, words punching out with venom before he settled a beat and explained. "Eli wanted to combine the countdown clock's safety mechanism we discovered on our first planet with the real-time and subspace planet scanner."

Rush trailed off, muttering by the end. The confession made him sag and deflate, and the sour, defeated expression on his face usually caused Young to feel like he had prevented a calamity, but here he just felt annoyingly unsatisfied.

"Eli?" Young asked, not taking his eyes away from Rush, who squirmed under his gaze.

"We-, well, sort of me- had the idea to make our off-world missions safer by sort of jury-rigging a way to prolong the FTL timer. You know the iris back at SGC?"

"Yes, of course," Young said, waiting patiently for Eli to continue.

"The safety feature on Destiny is sort of like the opposite of that, in that instead of blocking out whatever could come out of an incoming wormhole, it forces a wormhole to stay open if it senses an obstruction, right? So I've been writing a program that makes it check the scanned data we get from the planet-side stargate, you know, the stuff that it looks at to see if a planet has something we need while we're in FTL, for humans instead of just checking for obstructions. I've been calling it Project: Norton."

Eli waited for some kind of reaction. When it was clear he wasn't getting one, he clarified. "You know, like the anti-virus software? Because it's like anti-iris. Iris… virus. Get it?"

Young resisted the urge to roll his eyes just barely. Rush, on the other hand, smacked his hand onto his forehead and growled, "Eli, could you just get on with it?"

"Fine, fine. Everyone's a critic. Anyway, what it does is tell the countdown clock that there is someone blocking the stargate whenever the scanner picks up human life outside of Destiny. That way, nobody can… ah… nobody would get… left… behind."

Rush's face remained carefully blank. His gaze was fixed somewhere on the floor between the colonel's feet and the edge of the console. Without missing a beat, he carefully re-routed conversation. "Like the crewmembers on the Eden planet, right Eli?"

"Right. Exactly!" Eli said, very much like it had occurred to him for the first time after Rush suggested it. He gestured to Young as if handing him the example, palm-up. "Like on the Eden planet."

Aw hell. Young felt like a heel.

"It's entirely Eli's program," Rush said, breaking the awkward silence. He looked up this time, not making eye contact but no longer sulking. "I let him write it because I thought it would be a good opportunity for Eli to get some practice in practical application of workarounds. Isn't that right, Eli?"

"Yup. Entirely mine. Down to every last keystroke," Eli corroborated.

Young shifted, looking from Eli to Rush back to Eli. "Every keystroke?"

"All mine," Eli nodded.

"So the FTL drop is your responsibility?" Young asked flatly.

"No! That's what I've been trying to tell Rush," Eli said, clearly frustrated. "The code is good. There's just… something wrong with the scanners. Maybe."

"Or Destiny's definition of human," Rush offered, a note of doubtful sarcasm in the words. He was smiling. "Or the AI trying to override the gate safefail because it doesn't like its clock being tampered with. Or any number of things."

"So which is it?" Young asked.

"That's what I'm trying to figure out. If Rush could keep from listing out possible parts that I could have screwed up from a code he's never seen." Eli turned back to the console screen. "I'm telling you. There's nothing wrong with the code."

"Look again," Rush said, purposefully turning his head away from Eli and the console as if its contents were an entirely private matter.

"What do you think I'm doing?"

"I think you're bringing up the scanned data. Again."

"How can you tell if you're looking the other direction?"

"Wouldn't you like to know."

"Okay," Eli said, sounding incredulous. "Do not tell me you memorized the console's audio cues."

"I'm on the console three shifts a day, Eli. It's really not that surprising."

"That's enough, you two," Young intervened, drawing Rush's attention back to him while Eli kept looking for a solution. "So this program is what's keeping Destiny at a stand-still."

"In short," Rush said.

"Then shut it off," Young commanded, as if it were obvious.

Rush opened his mouth like he was about to argue, paused, and smoothed the expression into something more 'friendly'. "That seems a little hasty."

"It's great that Eli stumbled across how to put on the brakes, but we need a planet with available resources before that's actually useful."

"I think we ought to give Eli the opportunity to fix his mistakes before calling the whole thing off, don't you?" Rush asked, evenly. His collected cadence and the easy, open slope of his shoulder all of a sudden, a picture of mild-mannered, threw Young off and seemed to belie Rush's prickliness. "I seemed to recall you saying when we first arrived on Destiny that every member needed to be tested to see what they were capable of. This seems like an entirely fair intellectual equivalent."

"Now, you know we had to go to that planet-"

"And that it was worth the risk. That doesn't mean it wasn't risky."

Young stared at Rush, unable to read anything into his slightly raised eyebrows and coiled expression past the typical nervous energy. Young had to admit, though, he did make a point.

"Shut it off, and next time we drop out of FTL you can turn it on and tinker as long as you like," Young compromised. That seemed reasonable, if Rush was going to try and sell it as a 'safety program'.

"You realize that until we at least identify the problem, whatever is causing this now might not be present next time we drop out. We could only hope that the diagnost-"

Eli cleared his throat, cutting their bickering off and drawing their attention towards the console.

"Okay, guys, if mommy and daddy could stop fighting for just five minutes, I'm trying to tell you I didn't make a mistake." Eli finally moved to the side, pointing emphatically at the screen. The data of one of the locked-out planets sprawled across it, including an impressive and extensive list of biological signatures. One such signature was highlighted.

"Let me guess," Young said, eyes fixed to the screen

"It's human," Eli confirmed.

Rush inspected exactly what was being searched for. "We can do a more thorough scan now that we've dropped out. Eli?"

"On it."

"This is impossible," Rush muttered, looking sore as he leaned away from the screen.

"What could give it a false-positive for a human lifeform? Is the gate scanner that inaccurate?" Young asked, wondering just how reliable the scant bit of information the science team could gather on planets they visited before first contact actually was. Thank god for kinos.

Rush shrugged. "No bloody clue. Eli?"

"You're assuming it's a false-positive."

"Well I don't really know off-hand how a person could end up across the univ-"

The console screen projected a topological map of the area surrounding the stargate, and Rush's words died on his lips. The ground wasn't organic but raised and leveled and formed into a room with obvious design.

"Eli," Rush murmured. "Do we have any more information on the structure surrounding the gate?"

Eli nodded silently, and the map shrank to expand its borders across the screen. It was easy to tell, even in the monochromatic rendering, that the structure was designed by the blue aliens. The curves and long geometric figures echoed their ship, and if that wasn't enough of a tell, Rush's expression from across the monitor cinched it. Even having left him for dead, Young still couldn't make Rush look like that. It was as indecipherable as everything else about the man, and it vanished as quickly as it came.

"Is that the aliens from the other system?" Eli asked, looking over his shoulder to Young.

Young opened his mouth when Rush interrupted him. "It wouldn't be surprising. We've already established they have FTL travel; intersystem habitation isn't much of a stretch."

"That doesn't answer the question of why the scanner picked up a human presence," Young said.

"They could have abducted the crewmembers you allowed to stay on the Eden planet," Rush offered.

Young's heart stuttered.

"Do you think they were the ones to make the planet?" he asked, trying to avoid thinking about the possible implications of that revelation. Guilt wouldn't help prisoners of war.

"Highly unlikely. Given the level of technology that would require, I doubt Chloe and I would have had a chance to escape if they had been."

Eli chimed in. "It could be the guys who jumped ship on the first planet. We never established communication with them either, remember?"

"It's possible. The gate wouldn't have successfully dialed if it was partially obstructed, and it wouldn't have closed if they didn't have at least enough room to pass through entirely. But we do know those planets didn't have long-term viability for life. Even if they hadn't starved to death by now, the Eden planet is simpler. They should never have been allowed to stay."

"Now's not the time, Rush," Young warned irritably. He turned back to the console. "Is there any way of telling where the human signature is, exactly?"

"Not… really. I can see if we can get a cardinal direction or something, but we don't really know how the gate's scanners works to begin with. We could send a kino-"

"Which would actually require you to dial the gate, Eli."

Eli looked over his shoulder at Rush. "Yeah? Your point?"

"Well if you want to wave a massive flag alerting the entire alien complex that we're coming, then by all means be my guest," Rush said lightly.

"And you want to, what, take a shuttle?"

"The atmosphere seems amiable. We shouldn't need the suits."

"Yeah, but the gate is located on the other side of the planet. If we wait for it to get into a reasonable shuttle distance, we'll be just sitting in their airspace for hours. That's not really better than sending kinos, is it?"

"We would have a window of time before we were detected. I can guarantee you that'd more than we'd have if we dialed the gate."

"And what if we went through the gate blind, without sending kinos?" Young asked.

Eli and Rush looked at each other and then to Young, both with a look of pure incredulity. After the initial shock wore off, Rush huffed in amused disbelief, and Eli said, "Wow, um, that's a really bad idea."

"If we don't want to engage in combat then we need to get in and out fast. We can't do fast and undetected with a shuttle. Rush, you're sure that dialing would alert them?"

"I'd be willing to bet they build their base as close to it as possible, if not on top of it." Rush shifted again, an irritable scowl on his face that always came about when questioned about the aliens. "They've been following Destiny since before you and I were born, Colonel. Even if they didn't know what the stargate did before reading my mind, it's probable that they at least knew there was a connection between Destiny's course and the seed ships."

"Even better."

"How, exactly, is that better?" Rush asked.

Young rested more heavily on his rifle, "Do we want to help the hostages or not?"

Rush gave a thin, bitter smile. "I imagine they would be grateful."

"Then the closer we are to them when we gate in, the more likely we can get in there and get out before Destiny gets dragged into another beating. Better for ground troops. Better for Destiny. Better for the hostages."

Young looked to Eli for an opinion, who threw his hands up. "I have not played enough real time strategy to weigh in on this, okay?"

"Rush?" He asked, turning to the doctor.

Rush looked at him, then refocused to a middle distance as if considering their options. With a sort of resignation, he sagged and said, "Well, they're your soldiers."

"And with that inspiring note of confidence, Eli? Head over to the kino room. We can't properly gather intelligence beforehand, but we can at least have a few extra pair of eyes out there." Young clapped his hand on Eli's shoulder before Eli turned to leave. "Rush? Come with me."

They left together, turning in the direction of the control interface room and the gate room, the opposite direction Eli went.

"So how much of that program did you actually write?" Young asked as soon as they were out of earshot.

"Like I said, it was entirely in Eli's capable hands," Rush replied with a false levity. He lengthened his strides and Young mirrored him to keep pace, much to Rush's displeasure if his growl was any indication. When Young's presence became obvious that he was waiting for something more, Rush added, "I might have been a resource to be utilized if he were to become stumped, but that can hardly be used against him."

Young's hand closed around Rush's shoulder and he broke their gait with a sharp yank. Rush spun and shook himself away from the Colonel fiercely, but did not flee. He stepped back, almost to the wall, and waited for some kind of direction or explanation.

"I know why you made him write it," Young said.

"Not very impressive, seeing as I just told you," Rush responded, and the irritation in his voice went above and beyond the usual baseline.

"No, I mean the real reason."

Rush paused. He uncurled his fists against his thighs, extending his fingers in a stretch and coiled back into his cross-armed hunch. Young could hear the tiny cough of air his back hitting the wall forced out of him. Settling in for an actual conversation, now that he's recognized the inevitable. "Congratulations. Not exactly what I would consider difficult to puzzle out, but-"

"What are you planning, hm? What is it, Rush?"

Rush narrowed his eyes, looking at him in askance.

"We had a ceasefire. You're trying to cover your ass, which means you're planning to give me a reason to put you back on a rock."

Rush's suspicion morphed into disgust.

"I'm sorry, what?"

"Don't pretend like you don't know what I'm talking about. Don't pretend this is just because you're a coward." Young said evenly. He wanted to jam his finger in the other man's chest, wanted badly to incite that belligerent streak in Rush now, so he could burn it out before he's blind-sided by whatever he was plotting later. He settled for a growl, and had to be satisfied with the entirely fake, entirely inadequate and nearly suppressed flash of terror on the other's face.

It really wasn't fair.

He wasn't the bad guy here.

Rush was the bad guy. Rush was a threat.

This would be a perfect time to apologize for the planet.

This would be an entirely perfect and appropriate time to reassure him that, upon reflection, Young did not intend to leave him to die of starvation or exposure in the foreseeable future. That's what Young wanted to say.

Instead, he asked, "Who on the science team is going through the gate?"

Whatever Rush was expecting, it didn't seem to be that. He blinked out of whatever glassy-eyed composure he was fixed in and straightened as Young leaned back a pace. Disengage. "Ideally, none. Lieutenant Johansson will likely only clear me for kino supervision, and I don't see anyone else on the science team being anything but a liability in a military operation."

"Not good enough. Try again."

"Mr. Brody, then," Rush breathed, after a long, considering beat.

Young wasn't expecting Brody. He wasn't expecting an answer, but if he did have to guess he would have figured Volker, as who Rush would consider most expendable. His surprise at the choice must have shown on his face, because Rush explained himself, sounding suddenly weary.

"He's best equipped to locate and identify any alien technology you might want to salvage. And of who we have to work with, he's the least likely to cock everything up."

"Can we give him a gun?" Young asked, cutting to the chase.

Rush looked up as if picturing his engineer with an assault rifle and nodded thoughtfully in approval. "Also voted least likely to accidentally shoot himself in the foot."

Young actually cracked a smile at that. "Awfully confident there."

"We're scientists," Rush reminded him scathingly. Something broke over his face and he looked down with a twisted grimace. He mumbled something unintelligible.

"What was that?" Young demanded.

"Are we done here?" Rush repeated in a harsh hiss. He snapped his head up and fixed Young with a wrinkle-nosed sneer that was equal parts rueful and impotent.

Young was suddenly aware that he was giving Rush about five inches of space between them, all but pushing him into the wall. He took a step back and to the side, motioning permission to leave, and Rush pushed fluidly past.


End file.
